Month: September 2016

This next event, Reload on BinusTV, is probably the hardest for me to write. The main problem was that the event was taken place on live stream and I had yet to get my own router in my Boarder Room. Because of it, I had to use quota from my phone to watch livestream, but it would ate a lot of the space. As a result, I couldn’t watch the rest of the livestream.

The opening of Reload was a little entertaining but it did catch my attention. It was like a talk show with the host interview some students about their game projects. The first game they presented was Snowman Defender, which is a tower-defense type of game. From what I could see, it seemed decent. The premise was on the weird side, centering a boy defending his snowman from the abominable snow monsters that were jealous of said snowman. You could see the story by looking at the option menu. The gameplay was simple but addictive and fun. Your player character can move up and down while shooting snowballs at enemies. The main objective was to protect the snowman and keeping your player character alive. It was easy at first, but as the game progressed, newer types of snow monsters would appear and required the players to choose their targets carefully. There were no main objectives to progress the story; it’s one of those arcade-styled games where the main focus was getting a high score. I have to give the creators credit when I learn about the game’s origin. It was made specifically for a contest where the theme must be Christmas related. I would have trouble trying to come up with a game concept centered on Christmas.

The other presentation was War of Creatures. It is a trading card game where you two players pit against each other, summoning various monster cards and using spells. Personally, I was more interested with this than Snowman Defender. The card game reminded me so much when I was a teenager. I used to play card games a lot like Yu-Gi-Oh. At the very least, the older version before it had gotten too complicated with the newer version’s implementation of Synchronic feature. I would really like to try and understand the rules a bit better. I’m looking forward to see War of Creatures developed in the future.

The third showcase was a student project, Necrolands. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see the rest of the preview due to my quota ran out. By the time I got my quota refill, it was already over. Then again, it was kind of my fault for not using the lobby’s internet, but the last time I used it, it was notoriously slow.

Overall, Reload was good and entertaining. I like their previews and the hosts explaining the mechanics and their backstory. Personally, it is important for the hosts and the presenters to have fun with the games too so the viewers won’t get too bored. Thanks to their enthusiasm, I’m positive that it will attract viewers into trying out the games.

There was another event called HTTP. At first, I wasn’t interested in this HTTP and thought it wasn’t that important. Like the rest of FEP, I didn’t know anything about it. Some of the Buddy Coordinators seemed excited and told me that it was important for us students taking GAT. When I arrived at the event, I was surprised to see it started by showing a movie for us to watch. The movie was Zootopia. That was only the appetizer for the main course. As soon as the film was almost over, it was cut off to the main event with the hosts. My seat was at the second floor with some of my friends from Binus Square.

The opening was a bit shaky but decent at best. I honestly thought the singers weren’t great but weren’t bad either. Besides, I’ve heard worse singers out there. Then we had some words from the people behind HIMTI. They gave us some words of encouragement and a motivational speech. During the first act, there was another singer and he was a lot better than the band. After the first act, we had lunch break with everyone given the choices of vege and non-vege meals. I actually chose the vegetarian meal, , mostly because during the time I had a nasty stomach ache problem and my mother told me to lay off greasy meat for a while. The meal was decent at best, but it was not enough to fill my stomach.

Afterwards, we continued to the second act was a visualization, which was like a play in a way. Its strongest point was the message about the importance of teamwork and the dangers of being the person type who either demanded to be in complete control or forcibly push their own ideas onto others without listening to their opinions, especially when they think they are never wrong. The presentation’s story was also realistic as it could happen in real life. However, the acting could have been better. It wasn’t that good, but it wasn’t that bad either. Like the first act, I’ve seen worse acting. Unfortunately, not everyone shared my opinion with the visualization. I saw some of my friends bored and I even heard them moaning.

We had another break and this time, it was longer. Unlike the first break where we would be inside the auditorium, we had to do it outside. It was uncomfortable, to say the least. Thankfully, it wasn’t that long. The third and final act had started and we all had to gather at the ground floor. In my honest opinion, it was the best of HTTP. It was a concert performed by a different band in rap style. The songs they played were catchy that everyone in the auditorium ended up dancing all the way through. Needless to say, it was fun. It did feel like I was on one of those concerts. If that was how it felt when in a concert, I wouldn’t mind joining in. After the concert was over, we had our goodbyes and set off home. However, if there was one thing I didn’t like the most in this event, it was the time when we had to go. It was late and I was stuck in the place for almost an hour. After that long wait, I had to walk my way to Binus Square because it was really late that there were no more buses coming to Binus Anggrek. It was extremely unpleasant.

Overall, HTTP was decent and I did enjoy it for the most part.

When I first entered Binus, I didn’t know what to expect. Learning about this event, Freshmen Enrichment Program (FEP), for the new students didn’t help either. The event included the General Orientation (GO), Academic Orientation (AO), and Organization Skills (OS). There was also the English Foundation for those who had lower scores in their English skills. Needless to say, I was nervous and couldn’t get much sleep as a result. I’ve always wanted to create my own games and improve my development skills. It was a long journey, but I am glad that I get to experience such an event. There are some good times and there are some bad times, but mostly good.

During the first day of FEP, I met the Buddy Coordinators and they were friendly. In fact, they helped me and the others. It turned out to be a presentation about the campus and the things we should expect in Binus. We were organized into groups and I was placed to DBN 11. Each group was assigned to make their own yell-yell and memorize the Binusian anthems. The best part, in my honest opinion, was the EXPO during the last day of the orientation. It was such as a sight to behold. I was enthralled, especially with BGDC. By the end of the day, everyone presented their yell-yells with different results, but they were mostly good. Frankly, I was a bit disappointed that my group didn’t win first place of ‘most creative yell-yell,’ but it was only a competition, was it not? The important thing was to participate in the events and enjoyed them. Another important fact was that I had met some new friends throughout the GO. They were among the best people I met in a long time. Overall, the GO was enjoyable at best despite a few embarrassing moments that I personally ashamed of. The one moment I would never forget was the time I tried to suggest a certain theme; an inspiration for our yell-yell. Unfortunately, it came out being extremely awkward that none of my teammates thought it was funny.

As for the Academic Orientation, it did help me to know more how the academics work in Binus and familiarize with the environment. There were some interesting activities we had to go through. There was one time we had to draw our own character – even though I’m bad at drawing – and a mouse. Creating a summary of my game, now that was a different story. I’ve always enjoyed writing my games’ stories; simply from the beginning, the middle, and then the end. Another thing I enjoyed with the event was to make our game’s concept. I had been making fangames over the past five years, so it wasn’t that hard to make a concept. However, the biggest challenge was learning C++ Language and Algorithm. I had trouble trying to learn the subjects. Doing the coding on Microsoft Visual Studio was even harder as I kept getting errors. It was frustrating, to say the least. Despite my difficulty understanding the language, the algorithm, and the coding, I did enjoy the Academic Orientation on the whole.

As for the Organization Skill, there were some presentations that I found them interesting. One presentation, the HIMTI, showed us the marketing side caught my attention. The other presentation was Ureeka. It was more user friendly and they showed a lot of promising materials such as their showcases of their works. Lastly, there was the Jollybee. While their presentation showed promises but they were not user friendly as they require a test in order to join in. The Organization Skill was good although I personally enjoyed GO and AO more.

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